


What We Have

by starterjunkie



Category: Trainspotting (Movies), Trainspotting Series - Irvine Welsh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't Judge Me, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, I wrote this on a whim, It's not far from canon, Jealousy, M/M, Minor Character Death, Multi, Mutual Pining, Promiscuity, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-10-31 19:53:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10906338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starterjunkie/pseuds/starterjunkie
Summary: Allison couldn't handle the death of her baby, but Tommy was able to get over his hurt for Lizzie. Meanwhile, Simon and Mark struggle to figure out what to do with the pieces of the lives they have. (Isn't too alternate universe, basically my idea of what would happen if Mark and Simon were to eventually fall for eachother.)





	1. What We Lost

There are no reasons. At least, there weren't any when Sickboy and I decided to go down to the docks that night. It was cold, freezing even. We sat there like floating ducks, our backs to the world and our misguided feet dangling mere centimeters above briny water. I was wearing a right old brown coat, old as in I had gotten it in a secondhand shop just a few blocks down from the pawn shop. Sickboy wore his Burberry sunglasses everywhere, and now that it was night, he wore them folded and tucked into the collar of his t-shirt. Top that look off with his black Brunello Cucinelli suit jacket and a pair of scuffed-up jeans that I swear were mine at one point- he looked fucking gash. Everything was lifted, of course. Everyone could tell, but it never stopped him from pulling it off. No one ever suspects the voice of a right fucking con artist, playing as a suave bachelor, in the high-end department stores of Princes Street. Just looking at him inspired a police investigation. But in the way that made girls wetter than the fucking deck we were sitting on that night. He was a real fucking con artist.

"Ye knoo, ah've got a theory, Mark."

I looked at him for a moment over the smoke of my cigarette left burning between my fingers.

"Theory about what?"

In a slow, relaxed movement he drew the cig from my hand and pulled it into his mouth. I left my hand where it was, just waiting for it to return back to me, though I didn't expect it.

"About life, like."

Time sort of slowed down there in that moment, just a blip in where the water's lapping seemed to quiet and all I heard was his easy breath and the nauseating thumps of my own heartbeat. I watched him in wait. He kept me waiting because it meant nothing to him, really. He loved the sound of his own voice.

"I think... Cunts aren't shite because they want tae keep ye down. They're shite because they want tae go up. Like move up in the world, I mean."

"Right, et sounds like a focking ruse tae make yerself feel better about focking everyone over, innit?"

His sea glass eyes snapped to mine in an instant, his expression one of mild surprise and less subtly, irritation. He'd never really known me to be short with him, especially right in the fucking middle of one of his illustrious speeches. Truth be told, I never really saw myself doing that, speaking my piece right there against him. He kept the cigarette in his fingers for a moment, smoldering, before he flicked it into the hungry water.

"Well, what the fuck 'as got you so focking stiff, then?" He asked with a lift to the side of his upper lip, a curl which I could hear, having been around him since we were lads in primary. It'd gotten worse recently, though. Everything with Sickboy was theatrical. His life was some big London production that everyone was forced to watch, forced to encore- mates, birds, all of us cunts alike. Not that it was a good show, nay, not even that interesting half the time. But it was better than reality, or so he thought. I know what's behind the curtain probably better than he does. A whole lot of shite, pushed back by the wash of drugs that us doss cunts in Edinburgh have gotten comfortable with. The streets and our veins are awash with them, after all. Anything you could imagine, anything we can get our thieving fucking hands on, we'd stuff into our filthy veins and in our rib cages that we realized should hold hearts instead of scag. My hazy eyes followed the cigarette as it disappeared into the black water at our feet. I didn't really know what to say to Sickboy, I just wanted him to stop pretending.

"Si, there can't be a focking theory fer everything."

He gave me a frustrated look, staring hard at my dimly lit profile. I did my best not to meet his gaze.

"I'm not saying there is, Rents. But fer fock's sake, yer on the touchy side tonight."

That's the real difference between us, I guess. His grand velvet drape is woven thickly of easy women and hard drugs, while mine's more like a shower curtain that does nothing more than keep what's inside from spilling outwards, though it's totally fucking transparent. Still, he reminds me so much of myself that sometimes it makes me sick. We took a cab home later that night, a luxury which we don't often allow ourselves to indulge in. But it was cold- too cold to walk home. We sat together but apart in the backseat of the taxi, separated by the overly warm air that smelled of hundreds of bodies and god knows what else. I was glad the cabby was so quiet, but I wished Sickboy would say something. Out of boredom or maybe out of expectation, I waited for him to speak. It was a relief when he finally did, and he looked over to me, his elbow resting between the cab door in the window pane and his hand cradling his cheek.

"Allison's dead, by the way."

This was unexpected.

"Oh, aye? How?"

I could feel him stare at my eyes, which I allowed to meet his for once that night. He looked away slowly to maintain his artificial nonchalance.

"I guess she offed herself, like..." He spoke along with a vague gesture of his hand and a slightly uncomfortable expression on his lips. I leaned my head back against the seat, unable to tear my eyes away from his which were surprisingly alive with emotion, bubbling just under the smooth coat of false apathy. "Or overdosed. Not much of a difference, anyway."

I saw him tracing the reflections on the dark window pane, and I scooted a bit closer. Neither of us wore seat belts. Why would we? My hands felt along the rough fabric of the seat which was colored in such a way that the stains from vomit, blood, and probably many other bodily fluids would be camouflaged. My sweat was added to the vile mix. I knew and didn't know what I was about to do, but I felt my heart racing, threatening to tear itself out of my throat. It felt like I was overdosing right there in the backseat of the cab, the chemicals in my fucked up body pushing themselves over in anticipation for it to happen later. I was scared Simon would notice, but he didn't. _Fuck you_.

"'M sorry, Si," I eventually managed through dry lips, ears ringing from the sounds of blood rushing through my veins. I couldn't think of anything else to say, nothing human came out of my lips anymore. I was never one for outspoken eloquence, but I had reached a new low. Of course I was fucking mad at myself, here Simon was with a dead girlfriend and baby, and I've got a sweat like frost on my back from just saying my condolences; mourning my own intelligence. I hadn't noticed Simon wrapping his arm around me, but my moment of introspection was quickly culled when I felt his hand curl around my arm. He pulled me impossibly close and hugged me to his chest, not allowing me to see his face as he buried it in my shoulder. I hesitantly held him as he tucked himself into places that haven't seen a gentle hand in years, inhaling the warm scent of his cologne. _Polo Sport_ , I thought. I remembered him putting it down his pant leg on the way out of the store. It was one of the few good scents out of the thousands Ralph Lauren shat out. He seemed to feel relief in my touching him, which was surprising considering he'd never been one for affection, so I continued holding him, running my fingers into his bleached hair and across his scalp.

It was strange, surreal even. With his head tucked into my shoulder, the world passed outside of the cab’s windows in a dark blur. His breath was even and warm against the sweat on my neck, prompting me to tuck my fingers under the cloth of his shirt and rub his back. It just seemed right. We were completely alone in that moment, maybe me even more than him. He’d lost his bird and his baby. But you need to have something in order to lose it.

I’d not lost anything. So what did I really have?


	2. What We Are

It’s been a few days since that cab ride with Simon and my hearing about what happened to Allison. Swanney is the most outwardly upset about it, probably because she was notorious for trading sexual favors and that for junk, but Spud is a close second. After that night, Simon didn’t seem to think about it at all. He didn’t seem sad or lost, and he certainly didn’t want to be bothered about it. “The chase goes on”, he tells me. “Everybody drops off et some point along the way.”  
  
I keep telling myself that it wasn’t my girl, that wasn’t my baby. Baby Dawn wasn’t mine. Simon isn’t mine. So I kept going- we all did- going and going and chasing highs and stuffing our arms (in Swanney’s case, his dick) with opioids. Somewhere along the cycle, I decided to get clean again. It was an incomplete and poorly educated decision, made as I gripped the coat-tails of a bad high with my head in a public loo. I regretted it as soon as I got back to my flat and realized the sickness was coming soon, and to pile misery upon an already miserable realization, I’m alone.  
  
The few days I spent alone in my flat were, as I expected, absolutely fucking miserable- the worst type of sick, putrid misery experienced headfirst in the bowels of an inconsistent toilet, and tasted in the humid fever of a mind wracked with craving. Overall, the experience scared me. I was completely and totally dependent. I couldn’t live without heroin, and more than that, I didn’t want to. I don’t know how many times I thought about ending it in that shithole of an apartment, just within the last few days. Memories came flooding back, carried along by overzealous emotions long-restrained by opiate shackles, rising in the back of my throat like bile. I thought it would be easier than this. It had to be easier than this. How else was I supposed to get clean and make the choice to live like everyone else would? In my young, drug-addled brain, I sort of expected to somehow become clean at some unspecified point in my life when I get too old to score and too old to make skag seem attractive and fun and accessible.  
  
Fortunately, concentration on the metaphysical is easily stemmed when you’ve got a cocktail of medicine for universal unhappiness. Four days after I decided to clean up, I was back on the scene.  
  
“God...” I heard someone sigh from behind the front door of Superior’s sacred drug den. In my desperation for a hit, I hardly recognized the voice. I think it was the initial intensity and the bite of fear at the end of the word that told me that it was Tommy. With a bit of hesitation I pushed the door open, quickly scanning the familiar layout until my eyes rested on Tom, who, surprisingly, was completely alone.  
  
“Tommy..? Wot’re ye doing, man?”  
  
“I want tae try et, Mark. I want tae try heroin.”  
  
I walked over to the window he was sitting under, sort of forcing myself next to him and into his space. His eyes were wide and blue as ever, tainted by sadness and uncertainty and ill state of mind.  
  
“I can’t let ye do that.”  
  
“I need et, seriously. I’ll go tae someone else ef ye won’t help me.”  
  
“Wot happened?”  
  
His facade of determination shattered in an instant and left him a mess. Tommy’s overflow of emotions in that moment was both pitiful and refreshing, as heartless as it makes me seem. Really, I just didn’t know how to respond to my usually put-together mate sobbing on the worn out floor of a crackhouse.  
  
“Lizzie left me, man. She fockin’ up an’ left me…” He managed, barely, between quiet gasps for smoke-stale air.  
  
“The Iggy Pop thing?”  
  
“Aye, Iggy Pop… Called me an ‘inconsiderate bastard’, then up and focking left me, Mark… No chance ef makin’ et up, either. Made that real focking clear, like...”  
  
Carefully, I placed my arm around his shaking shoulders, giving him a gentle, apologetic squeeze. The tension in his body released visibly as I did, so I assumed it helped at least a bit.  
“Yer tae good fer her anyway. Ye’ll make some bird the happiest in the world, ye knoo.” I’m no actor, I know. But I’d try my best for his sake. Fortunately, he seemed to believe it, and whether or not I did was completely unimportant.  
  
It took him a few seconds to respond, his hands shaking as they wiped at his cloudy eyes and his breathing coming in short, quiet gasps like a child. “Aye, thanks… Yer a good mate. I’m sorry fer puttin’ all this on ye.”  
  
I nodded my head.  
  
I sat there with him in that painstakingly affectionate, human position for what must have been hours until Tommy calmed down enough to leave without a needle in his arm and an opportunity for the demon of addiction to find residence in his brain. He probably went home to sleep off the depression that, for him, was temporary, while I stayed around by Swanney’s to get high and slag off any responsibilities I might have had, and all of the anxiety that came with it. I sat on the stained mattress in the adjacent room while Mother Superior cooked me a hit, having already scrutinized the wad of cash I’d handed to him. He’d always do that with our money, but I couldn’t blame him, since Sick had tried to play off with counterfeits before, and Swanney’d gotten ill of bounced checks and unpaid ‘store credit’ as he calls it. The Den of Mortal Pleasures is a cash-only establishment now, and will remain as such until further notice.  
  
Swanney shuffled in with my syringe in a glass of water and I inhaled deeply in anticipation. My arm throbbed in its faux-leather tourniquet, aching to reunite with the cooling brown shite just inches away from my desperate hand. I felt my breathing hitch as I turned the syringe in my hand, flicking the side of the barrel so the air bubbles would rise to the top, and I stuck my prepared vein with the needle. With a push of the plunger, I was there. Back to normal. Back to the person I wanted to be, the person heroin made me. I fell back against the mattress as my breathing slowed to nearly nothing, heroin replacing every need. Air, food, drink, sex, genuine human connections- heroin replaces all of it. And I was happy to have my best mate back.


	3. What We Want

I must’ve been nodding for a few hours, as when Simon barged into the room, black combat boots shuffling across the scuffed-up floors, he had no choice but to start patronizing me. 

 “Ah, so this es where you’ve been all day, huh?” he sneered slightly, crossing his bare arms as he leaned over me in order to shroud me in his shadow.

 He liked to do that for some reason, he’d probably be imagining himself absorbing my soul or something. Anything he could do to pin himself as dominant. It took me a moment to sit up, and I had to crane my neck to look up at him. I looked painfully disheveled compared to him, as he was wearing pair of jeans and a suit jacket that appeared to be fresh off of a Parisian runway. To my surprise, his condescending smirk disappeared as I didn’t honor him with a ‘fuck off’ or something of that nature. I rubbed my eyes and sort of lurched forward to push myself to my feet, feeling Simon’s gaze following me all the while.

 “Ye look like shite, Rents.” 

 I think he was trying to be sympathetic, as unsophisticated as the comment was. For some reason the Scottish junkhead equivalent of James Bond, who charmed lasses into bed with a silver tongue and a few pills, couldn’t even look me in the eye. I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted, so again, I left his comment alone.

 “Thanks.”

The room was dark, hardly illuminated by the distant street lights that filtered through the filthy windows and sheer red drapes. Somewhere past the rotting, dilapidated walls, I could hear glass breaking and a woman crying. Simon didn’t turn his head to follow the noise; he stared at me. 

 “Let’s go.”

 We walked home together in palpable silence and as I looked over at him, I could tell he was aching to say something. Parting my lips, I thought I’d ignite a bit of conversation.

 “Tommy-”

“Don’t start on me with that shite aboot Tommy, fer fuck’s sake,” he spat suddenly, injecting himself into the forefront of my attention, though strangely he didn’t seem like he really wanted to be there in the moment. “You always focking talk aboot Tommy… Don’t ye have anything more INTERESTING tae talk aboot?” I recoiled slightly.  _ What the fuck was his problem?  _ I’d not intended anything, much less for my words to be INTERESTING, of all things. Hell, none of us had ever said anything really interesting. One of the perks of being completely and totally addicted to skag was that nothing HAD to be interesting- that was the point. It was the ultimate distractor. Once I had gotten over my initial shock, I felt myself staring at Simon, my brows creased and lip curled, and he immediately dropped his gaze to the floor, swinging it out into the dark, reflective street.

 We weren’t always like this. There was a point in our lives when I can say, with certainty, that we knew eachother. We’d lost it over the years, the genuine closeness we once had with eachother. Sickboy always had something I didn’t, whether it was constant attention from women, an obsession other than heroin (Bond, of course), societal approval, or the ability to fool himself into contentment- he had always surpassed me. And as soon as he thought he didn’t need me, he replaced me with women, dissolved me in a hot spoon and chased me down with a swig of vodka. But tonight, in that brief space in time where our eyes met, he begged me to come back. I almost wanted him to beg; it gave me an excuse to come back. And I always loved him. Like heroin, I loved him because he killed me.

The lighter in Simon’s hand flicked open and gave life to a small flame, igniting the end of a Turkish Royal. My steps slowed, falling in time with Simon’s that gradually stopped, boots scuffing against wet concrete as he turned to pull the warm cigarette from his mouth. He breathed slowly for a moment, exhaling a heavy cloud as he set the barely damp end of the cigarette against my lips. As I brought my hand to my mouth, I looked up at him and watched his glassy blue eyes chase a car that purred past somewhere behind me. I imagined him struggling to avoid my gaze, but I knew he probably didn’t give it a single thought. We kept walking and I wrapped my lips around the cigarette that once lingered between his, the sound of our shuffled footsteps against the coarse sidewalk droning on forever.

 I lost my flat the next day. 

 The landlord expected me out by 2PM that day, my things in boxes, and my keys and dignity on his desk. I’d been so fucked in the head for the past few weeks with binge highs and a waste of a detox that I had no money nor thought to pay rent. Fortunately, Spud came by. He was a junkie like the rest of us, but in comparison he was like a breath of fresh air. Honest like Tommy, with a sort of untouched innocence that none of us really ever had, even as kids. 

 “Ay, Mark! I didn’t know ye tae have so many records…” He crossed his legs as he sat on the floor, sifting through my box of records. “I knew ye liked music lots, but ah never knew, like…” 

“That I like music enough not tae sell them fer junk?” I turned my head and smiled faintly, surprisingly calm for a man losing his home. When you’re well and truly addicted, nothing scares you more than losing your poison. Necessities? Losing those wouldn’t kill me.

 Spud laughed his hiccuping laugh, rolling his head to the side to look at me. “Aye! Good on ye.” It didn’t take long for him to bore, at which point he returned to boxing up my cheap dishware, plastic cups and cheap cutlery, some still in their boxes. I packed my clothes away and half-listened to whatever Spud was enthusing about, happy to be free of the obligation of responding while he rambled on and on about Begbie’s antics and Sick’s hogging the shower and Gail and how nice her parents were and…  

 “Sick’s living with ye and Begs?” I raised my brows, peering out at him from the doorway of my former bedroom. Simon certainly hadn’t mentioned that. I felt a certain surge of relief at knowing that he’d lost his place too, but that was overshadowed by the disappointment that he hadn’t told me. He used to tell me everything.

 “Aye, bein’ a right focking pain in Begs’ arse, tae! Ye want tae move in?” The lilt to his voice carried a lyrical lightheartedness that I was surprised at, knowing full well that Begbie did NOT want another junkie moving into his one bed flat. “I’d love tae have ye! Simon, tae! He’s been goin’ on and on about ye tae me.” He giggled, wiggling his brows like a child who was told a secret and so badly wanted to tell everyone he met. And I did want to know. 

“Aye, that’d be good. Dunnae want tae move in with me parents again. What did Sick say aboot me, then?”

 He giggled again. “Nay, I can’t tell! Et would be soooo wrong ef me. Promised I wouldn’t tell. But et’s nothing bad, like!”

 “That’s good,” I sighed, pretending I didn’t want to know after all, and that I wasn’t in the slightest curious anymore. Going back to packing was the last thing I wanted to do in that moment, but it had to be done. Simon could be worried over later. 

 It didn’t take long to pack all of the things I wanted to keep- I had sold or traded most of it away, anyway. We hauled all of it off to Begbie’s flat a few minutes’ walk down the road, Spud fumbling to ease the little key into the door. After a few tries, I took it from him and unlocked the door. 

 “Sorry, sometimes I just get pure excited, like! Yer movin’ in and yer a mate, so I’m right happy over et, ye knoo?” His words bounced around nearly as much as he did, flying out of his mouth at a near unintelligible speed. I nodded, pushing the door open and dragging my bags inside while Spud followed with the boxes. Begbie’s flat wasn’t quite a pit, as Spud had been keeping most everything quite clean, often channeling his nervous energy into something repetitive like cleaning when he wasn’t high off his ass. 

 It took a few trips to get everything moved over, and I set my bare mattress in the corner of Begbie’s notably spacious sitting room. He’d be getting back from work soon, so I tried to make my sudden appearance in his house as inconspicuous as possible, dragging my boxes and clothes into an efficient, compact stack and tossing some old floral blanket and deflated pillow onto the place I’d call my bed. Spud smiled excitedly and began putting my dishes in the cabinets. _Smart. It would be harder for Begbie to kick me out if I had all of my shit in his house._ Begbie was exceedingly lazy, anyway, when it came to anything but drinking, gambling, and fighting. And even then, he was still pretty lazy. Simon wandered inside a few minutes after I’d gotten everything settled and laid down on the mattress, one of my legs propped up to hold a book and the other splayed across the blanket.

 "Oy, wot the fock’re you doing?” He watched me as he stood by the front door, closing it with the back of his heel. His tone was alive with expression, teeming with things I couldn’t quite catch- not that I’d any particular talent for reading people. 

 “Reading.” 

 “You live here now, ah?” 

 “Until Begs kicks my shite tae the street, aye.”

 He raised his brows and nodded slightly. “O-kay, then.” He sat down on the couch, taking his gear out of the compartment he fashioned in the heel of his boot. 

 “Share with a mate?” I looked over my knee at him, folding the page of the book over and tossing it aside.  Simon took a moment, but surprisingly, he nodded and gestured with the back of his hand to the spot on the couch beside him. Half unaware with desire, I crawled onto the couch, eyes fixated on the score as I wrapped Simon’s belt around my upper arm. He drew me into his hands, running his calloused fingers along the bulging veins in my skin. My hairs stood on end as he placed the needle against my arm, and I inhaled as it pierced the scarred tissue, awaiting deliverance to the realm of ecstasy. I opened my eyes.

“Sick, come on…” I looked down at his thumb, which was still over the end of the plunger.

 “Tell me what ye want me tae do.” 

 “What are ye talking aboot? Come on…”

 “Say it.” His voice was dark now, and slightly intimidating. I grabbed his arm out of desperation. My bliss, no- my relief was at his fingertips. I needed that hit. 

 “I need- give et tae me, Si. Please…” 

 With a sigh, he pushed the plunger and I was there again. Finally. In his arms with my pulse slowing to a crawl and my breath as shallow as I thought my grave would be. Everything was good now. Heroin was like a caring mother to me then. Holding me and stroking my hair after a long day and that unspecified pain that comes with living, whispering a gentle lullaby to coax me into a safe sleep that required no safety at all. 


	4. What We Need

To my luck, Begbie wasn’t too angry at seeing me at his place with all of my shite. He was in a brilliant mood, really. He went on telling Spud about how he’d scored some ‘solid ten’ lass for a quickie after work, something Simon and I couldn’t care less about in our blissfully unconscious state. He was still half holding me on his lap from what I could feel, as my cheek was pressed up against his thigh and one of his arms was strewn across my chest. He was awake, I know, from his shifting under me, but he made no attempt to remove me from my spot. We all shuffled out of the house later that evening after a few showers and a sobering pot of coffee, taking two cabs to a local nightclub. “We should celebrate.” Begs said. “Celebrate a good shag with drink and hopefully another fucking shag.” None of us raised an argument, and Simon even seemed a bit excited. I glanced down at the pocket of his jacket as he reached into it, seemingly fumbling with something as the cab sped through the streets.

“What’re ye doing?” I asked, furrowing my brows. Normally I wouldn’t have bothered, but I felt strangely close with him after falling asleep on his lap. I didn’t really know if I had a right to be, but that’s what I felt regardless.

He drew his hand from his pocket and held up a small cigarette box, shaking it in his hand and creating the flat, hollow sound of something small and solid against the hard paper. _Pills. Ecstasy_ . I knew why he was excited; he planned to get a shag tonight. With heroin dependence, sex drive is reduced to near nothing. So Simon uses his ‘magic pills’, as he calls them, to get lasses in bed with him and stay there- all part of his Bond persona, I assume, to boost his ego. I doubt he even felt much physical pleasure from it- it was difficult enough to have an erection as a smackhead, much less have an orgasm. I guess I didn't understand the purpose of sex, if not to feel some sort of happy ending. Simon, hypersexual as he is, probably needs the control. As soon as I heard the pills rattle around in the cigarette box, I regretted coming out with him. _He’s excited to find someone that isn’t me. Wonderful._ That’s always a great thing to realise, that the cunt you want the most has absolutely no care in the world for you. I laid my head against the window, seething with a jealousy that seared the back of my chest and licked its flames into my throat. But maybe he wouldn’t leave with someone else. _Maybe he’d leave with me_ . I didn’t even really want sex, I just wanted him to myself. _Fucking bastard._

  
Tommy was already there, sitting at the table he saved for us, and I sat myself next to him, Spud taking his other side while Begbie went off to get drinks and Sickboy disappeared into the undulating crowd. Talking over the buzzing bass of the music and clamor of the people was impossible. Trying to listen was even worse from any more than a few centimeters away, so the three of us in the booth leaned in, hardly a breath away from each of our faces and the loud, pop shite pulsing in our eardrums.

“What’s Franco getting?” Tommy yelled over the noise, looking to Spud. Spud always seemed to know what Begbie was up to, strangely enough, so we’ve grown used to just asking him instead of Begbie directly. But Spud raised his brows and made a helpless, somewhat exaggerated shrugging motion, so Tom nodded and drew his gaze across the club. After that brief moment of weakness in Swanney’s den, Tommy’d recovered nicely. Though not quite back on the scene, I could tell by the way the flashing lights shone off his enthused expression that he was ready to move on. No more Lizzie, and that was alright. Gail slid in beside Spud just as Begbie came over with the beers, which were expertly fixed against each other in his ring-adorned hands.

It isn't possible to lose something you never had, but that’s how it felt. Everything moved around me as I sat there in the booth, hands wrapped around a sweating glass mug, the chatter of my so-called-mates passing over and through, but never reaching me. The flashing lights were beautiful and disorienting. Each time they flashed from green to blue to white, my sick mind filled in the spaces, where the colors mingled in his cold eyes. _Simon._

Green. Blue. White.

He danced around in my head and before my eyes, smoke wrapped around his lips and a Turkish Royal twirling nimbly through his manicured fingers. I gripped the side of the the table, shivering slightly as a cold film of sweat found its way across my palms. Something was wrong with me. He was everything- the best fucking high in the world and the worst sickness. And right now, I was in withdrawal.

The crisp, wet air outside burst into my lungs as I stumbled into the alley behind the club. I'd said something uninspired to excuse myself from the table, though I didn't really need to. I regretted it as soon as the metal door fell shut behind me, and the deafening pulse of the music inside was stifled, then overpowered by the feverish ringing in my head. Was it self-absorbed to hope someone had noticed me leave? Probably, but I hoped anyway. Inhaling deeply, I slumped into a sitting position against the brick wall, under the heavy shadow of a large green dumpster. The smell there was sickeningly sweet. Whatever was in there had clearly rotted, the remains of something sugary marinating in inches of putrid water that had collected in the bottom of the bin and had stewed in the afternoon sun into something nearly as vile as what I injected into my veins on a daily basis.    


Underworld’s ‘Dark Train’ blared into the forefront of my attention suddenly, startling me out of my wallowing. I must have been sitting out there by the bin for at least a half hour, as the fag I’d left resting between my lips had burned to a stump and peppered ash across my thighs.

“Mark?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, allowing myself to swallow the stinging cocktail of disappointment and relief of hearing Tommy’s gentle voice. When I opened them, he was seating himself next to me, scuffing his white joggers on the wet pavement and looking down at me from under his halo of white-gold hair. I couldn’t hold his gaze, it felt too human, too sympathetic, too unfamiliar.

“Hey.” I mumbled, flicking the cigarette butt to the darkness and sweeping the ash from the worn fibers of my jeans. The pulsating beat faded into the background with the hollow click of the door closing, leaving the both of us suspended in silence. “Want a cig, mate?”

My heart pounded desperately against the papery skin on my neck, threatening to rip itself out of its prison and make itself heard.

“No, I jest thought ah’d come tae check on you.” _Shite_. “ Ye’ve been oot here fer a while.”

I gave him a half smile, which was similarly half-genuine. His concern was honest and sweet, sure, but he wasn’t exactly who I’d hoped to show up. I slid the box of cigarettes into my pocket and looked up at Tommy, whose clear, boyishly handsome face was pink, and his eyes a hazy, inebriated blue. It was completely different than Si’s. Tom possessed an innate light that radiated out of every smile and in the white fluorescent gleam of the harsh street lamp against his otherwise deep blues. I think that was my only reason for not chasing him. He wasn't a high, like Simon was. He was contentment. But I didn't want someone to bring light into my fucking miserable, dependent, volatile life- I wanted someone to share the darkness with me. I was so close to what I needed, but an eternity away from what I wanted.

He smiled back at me, closing the space between us with another scrape of rubber on concrete and bringing our faces a mere breath from each other.  Tommy didn't seem to register my confused expression, though it was quickly washed over as I drew in a tight gasp and my nostrils were filled with his warm breath, laced with the sanitary bite of vodka. Every space was filled with his noise and smell and form, which he’d moved close to mine, shrouding me unintentionally in a shadow even darker than the one produced by the dumpster beside us. He pressed his lips to mine. It was warm and still too unfamiliar, but it felt good. _Mark, one. Simon… One hundred_. A step closer to evening the score, closing the antagonistic gap between us. After that thought, I let myself enjoy it. I fell into Tommy’s strong hands and into his eager lips, letting his glow engulf me and touch me, if just for a moment.

_Underworld_.  

Green, blue, and white flashed into the darkness.

I pulled away from Tommy, looking up at the hypocritical reflection of myself staring angrily back down at me.

“What the fuck, Mark?!”


	5. What Drives Us

I squinted as my eyes adjusted to the light of the open door. Simon was standing in front of it, some blonde lass hanging off of his arm with her hand in his trouser pocket, and his face burning with confusion and rage. I shifted away from Tommy, whose eyes were wide as dessert plates, and stood up against the metal bin, doing my best to gather myself enough to think of some response that would make the cunt realize how hypocritical he was being. He’d seen Tommy kiss me. I tried to feel smart, to feel a sense of satisfaction about it. Tried to reason with myself that  _ this, this is what the cunt deserved for leading me along _ , but I just couldn’t stomach it. All I felt was regret. 

I stood there, back slumped as I stared into Simon’s white hot eyes. The door clicked shut and I could see his face tightening, his jaw wrenching his teeth together, his shoulders squaring pointedly away from me. My lips parted silently, helplessly, while Tommy’s shadow was drawn across the wall like a frightened cat. I felt fear, too. The pit in my stomach as a high slips just past my desperate fingers, barely out of reach- just close enough to make me sweat in anticipation. Simon snapped his predatory gaze in Tommy’s direction, shrugging the girl off of his arm. 

“What the fuck're you looking et, Tommy?” His voice was nearly a growl, like a low movement in the earth that only an animal could detect. I was a dog in his shadow, and his words were full of venom. 

Tommy glanced at Simon and I, cutting through the palpable air between us as he flung the door open and disappeared into the flashing lights. The girl tugged on the sleeve of Si’s black suit jacket. Her hands looked manicured and beautiful. I looked down at mine. I didn't know what I expected to see. Like the rest of my body, they were skeletal, pale, and dotted with purple and green and yellow. Always cold. 

A hiss came from Simon’s pursed lips, one of disdain, and he turned on his heel, grabbing the warm looking lass by her pleasantly slim arm. His shadow rounded the corner after him, and I was alone again in the biting darkness. He loved to leave me alone like this when something i’d done managed to irk him the wrong sort of way. I imagined he saw it as a sort of punishment for me, a chance to think on my transgressions, because he knew that one way or the other, I'd come crawling like the dog I was right back to his feet. At some point, we parted ways. I went back to drinking with the mates, and he disappeared with his nameless broad.

A few uninteresting days passed before Simon even showed up around Begbie’s place again. Things were calmer there without him. Everything about my day-to-day was more normal and secure- to the extent it could be- but the aching boredom of life without him was beginning to set in. Addiction and dependence were never one and the same. I depended on heroin for the sensation, but what I was fully addicted to was the lifestyle; my so-called friends, the people and situations that kept me here in Edinburgh, in our drug-induced 

purgatory. But without Simon, there was little to my addiction. I’d used in the morning and laid there feeling the emptiness of sobriety with veins full with China white. As much as I despised how dramatic, how artificial he could be, he made the chase what it was. I don't think Spud or anyone else ever felt that way, but Simon and I were energy. We were unstoppable. That's what I lusted after in the empty light of his absence.

Fortunately, I didn't have to lust for long. 

“Rents.” 

I rolled over.

“Rents, git up.”  Simon muttered impatiently, shaking my shoulder with a firm hand. 

I tossed my head to the side and looked up at him through my lashes, trying to shield my eyes from the bare morning sun filtering through the half-shuttered, dusty blinds. My lip curled up as my eyes came to focus on his, which were locked hard onto mine. I couldn’t hold his gaze, excusing myself silently to rub the crust of sleep from the corners of my lids. 

“God, et’s fucking early… What do you want..?” I groaned at him petulantly, tossing my pillow in his direction. He caught it, of course, and looked right fucking annoyed with me. 

“Et’s already seven thirty, you lazy cunt,” Simon scoffed, as if he didn’t regularly wake up to the afternoon news. He shook my shoulder again and I swatted his hand away non-threateningly, slowly rocking myself into what could be passable as a sitting position. 

“Oh, fuck you… Yer the one who had a twenty-four hour binge ef porn and crisps last week.” 

“Et wasn’t jest mindless watching ef porn,  _ Mark _ . Et was an ‘appreciative viewing ef pornography’, much like the ah, contemplation ef art, if you will.” He gestured vaguely, moving his hands in a fluid, yet unclear motion. “Et was vintage!”

“That’s what yer calling it now?” I raised my brows in a sort of playful incredulity, a partial smirk forming across my lips as I saw the beginnings of a smile tug at the corners of his. He burst into laughter first- a bright, breathy laugh that made you want to follow suit, just to get a bit of what he’s having. Soon we were both busting our sides, having a bit of a wrestle on the floor just like we’d done as lads, and everything felt very right again. He shoved the pillow in my face and I laid back on the mattress, admitting defeat with a shit-eating grin on my cheeks. “No really, fuck ye dain thes early, waking me up, like?” 

He blinked for a moment, I think trying to remember what he’d come around for, before laughing again and shaking his head. “...Aye, right. You, me, Murphy. John Menzies.” He tucked his thumbs into the pockets of his camouflage-print pants, stretching the fabric taut with a wiggle of his brows. 

_ Well, I most certainly couldn’t say no to that.  _

Sickboy, Rents, Spud. Three of Edinburgh’s nastiest low-life junkies, parading down Princes Street as if they owned the city block. Who would have thought of it? We’d split up as soon as our reflections gleamed off of the mirrored entryway, taking in all different directions through the store like shadow under a streetlamp. I must have looked worse than usual, because an old broad with tortoiseshell specs did a disgusted double-take as she passed in front of me towards the stationary. 

“This generation’s goan tae th’ pits…” She muttered, shaking her head and making her toothless lower jaw jiggle like the lime-flavored gelatin you get at the hospital. I stared at her with an expression of offense, though I hadn’t really felt any, and I casually wandered my way to the back of the store. Simon was already there, thumbing through the cassettes, and slipping one or two into the pocket of his grey trenchcoat when the opportunity to go unseen arose. He glanced up at me once or twice with his focused, hawk-like look as I scanned across the shelves for any wandering eye or worse, security. Spud hobbled over with his jacket stuffed with electronics, eyes wide with guilt and anxiety. Poor cunt. As soon as he’d taken something, he had the urge to turn himself in, just to ease the jitters. 

“Daniel. If you WOULD please, go see tae the books…” Simon muttered warningly, sweeping his gaze from side to side. Spud’s lower jaw dropped in an almost comic fashion as his eyes fixed on something just past me, over my shoulder. 

Simon’s throat tightened as he swallowed, dropping all pretense of composure. “Run, fucking RUN!”

We scattered in a panic, darting off through the aisles with our hands tucked hard in our pockets, gripping what we could of our lifted haul. My once-white-now-mostly-brown sneakers hit the polished tile rhythmically, desperately grasping for a few inches advantage on our pursuers. I tore through the Princes Street Gardens, not looking back, and not really seeing forward, leaving a trail of cassettes bouncing off the pavement behind me. I rounded a corner just fast enough to fall out of sight of the two security guards, pushing open the glass door of a crowded cafe. 

The A/C in the place was relief enough, but the giant windows didn’t do much to provide cover.  Like moths to a flame, the line of working men and women turned their heads to stare through me with disgust, some with pity, some with nonspecific anger, but always through me. They never looked long. It was easier for them to find things more important or more comfortable to lay their gaze upon. 

With a roll of my head along my shoulders, I continued, staggering through the painfully normal bystanders to the back of the shop, until I reached a door with a note taped across the front that read, in bold marker, “EMPLOYEES ONLY W.C.”. I placed my disgustingly clammy hand over the paper, smearing cold sweat across the text as I yanked the door open. My nose wrinkled as the stale air of the toilets hit me- the smell of public toilet hand soap- the pink, stale sludge, filled my nostrils. It wasn't the worst toilet in Scotland, that's for fucking sure, and it was safe. 

I sat there on the toilet with painfully hot breath tearing at my throat, waiting for a just a few minutes so I could make my way out again. 

Simon and Spud would be fine on their own. 

After spending a good while weaving in and out of back roads, watching my back, I ended up at the door of my parents’. It must have been the junkie in me, subconsciously realizing my need for money, or more accurately, my need for a hit. My mum welcomed me in with open arms, constricting her ignorant yet loving arms around my thin frame. 

“Oh, Mark… Coming home?” She turned her dilated eyes onto mine and I released the hug. I couldn’t fix my head around the idea of my own mother being the way I was. Dependent, or the more commonly used term, a drug addict, albeit in her own, more socially acceptable way. 

“Ah, jest stopping by.” Meaningless words drooled out of the side of my lip as I slid my hand into the pocket of her sweater, fishing out a few quid. I wish I could say I felt guilt for what I’d done, stealing from my own family, but heroin had taken that ability from me long ago. Seven years of addiction in the eye of an epidemic, bound only to worsen. The miserable chasing after misery, longing for the day they’d choose between death and the two things they could still feel: need and sickness. I chose the latter, for now. 

The three of us smackheads all found ourselves back at Mother Superior’s later that evening, in various stages of cooking up. The place was quieter without Allison and baby Dawn, though I couldn’t say I was as torn up as I knew I should’ve been. What happened to Dawn was tragic, but what happened to Allison was inevitable. Willingly or maybe unwillingly, she looked down the fork in the road and saw the singular option waiting for her in the darkness. Simon was right. We’d just have to get used to the silence and wait for the day when all we’re left with is the oppressive darkness of the needle. The light at the end of the tunnel had to be turned off to save on electric expenses, after all. 

Simon sat next to me on the old mattress we’d claimed as our own, watching my expression as I thrust my palm against my arm and ignored the dull pain of the bruises and the sharp pain of the score marks and the feverish warmth burning across my inflamed skin.  He had those pretty sea glass eyes, wide and dark and mysterious. When he turned them on me, it felt like relief and that special sort of safety that never required any safety at all. The needle pricked my skin without any pain.  _ There.  _ My eyes closed slowly, pulling the velvet curtains shut on the miserable production of sobriety.

I wondered if Allison used to see his eyes that way. And the baby, Dawn. Those were her father’s eyes. Maybe she would have had them.

Suddenly, I was floating. This high was great- but it wasn’t like the others, no. I was floating or falling asleep. It’s too much. It’s too much.

_ The score’s even now. Boards are wiped clean. You win. _


End file.
